


Stars and Ghosts Between the Lines

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Future Fic, Hair Braiding, Introspection, Legacy: A Victurio Anthology, M/M, Post-Canon, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 01:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17571401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Yuri wakes up a decade in the past, and in the younger Victor's bed. With Yuri still dealing with the after-effects of the older Victor's legacy in his time, this younger Victor takes some getting used to while Yuri waits to return to the present. Younger Victor is too cheerful and too curious, and too interested in playing with Yuri's hair.





	Stars and Ghosts Between the Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the "Legacy" Victor/Yuri charity zine, and given minor edits.

Yuri woke with the minor headache he had expected and on a soft surface that he had not. Maybe he'd accidentally stolen Victor's bed last night after their little end-of-season party. Victor better not have carried him there; Yuri would have been fine crashing on the floor with Mila and Yuuri, or whoever had lost the fight for the couch.

He blinked his eyes open and was immediately confused, because it wasn't Victor's bedroom. Not that he'd had a lot of opportunities to be in there, but he'd slept there a couple of times while babysitting Makkachin for Victor, when he was too tired to return to his own place. This room didn't have all the windows that Victor's did, and on the wall, instead of a generic greyscale picture of a cityscape there was a poster of Lambiel, and—

—and it wasn't silent. Someone was whispering. Yuri pushed himself up and whipped his head around, wincing at the sudden pounding that awoke behind his eyes at the movement.

Victor _was_ standing by the door. But he wasn't the Victor that Yuri knew, recently retired, mourning the fact that he'd hit thirty. This Victor had to be about Yuri's age, hair down to his hips, eyes wide as they stared at Yuri. He was holding a phone to his cheek.

Yuri swore. Victor pressed himself further against the wall and murmured into his phone, "Yeah, he's awake, I don't think he's happy – Yakov, what do I do?"

It had been years since Yuri had last experienced a time jump himself. He'd been hoping to be lucky enough not to have another for decades, if ever, because it had been _weird_. At least last time, he'd been twelve and he'd ended up with a younger version of his grandpa, who had been delighted to meet his grandchild, although he hadn't yet met his spouse. To be stuck with a younger Victor for – a week, ten days, a fortnight, who the hell knew how long it would last – was another thing altogether.

"I swear I wasn't drunk! I don't know him at all – I didn't even go out last night!"

"I'm not your _hookup_ ," Yuri snarled. "I'm your future rink mate, hi, we meet in like five years, now get me some painkillers."

Victor paused, then lowered his phone. "Oh, you're a traveler?"

After Victor had asked him a few questions to confirm he was indeed a time-traveler, and then reassured Yakov that no, things were just fine after all, he went off to get him some aspirin. Yuri flopped to the bed. Great. A week without Potya, without being able to skate with Yuuri, without being able to text Otabek, without even – wait.

He flailed an arm around and found his backpack, which he'd been using as a pillow last night. Good. His skates were still inside. If he had to go through this, he might as well get some practice in.

When Victor came back, he had a million questions. Of course he did. Makkachin was tagging along with him now, too, and suddenly the bed was a lot more crowded. Yuri swallowed the aspirin and introduced himself.

"How old are you?" Victor asked, and the curious glint in his eyes made it clear how many other questions were wrapped up in that one.

"Eighteen, and older you's thirty, so I've traveled, what, a decade? I guess that's not _so_ bad." No big technology issues, at least. Although, if he hadn't packed his phone charger....

"Close! I'm nineteen, so we're almost the same age – maybe this will be fun!" Now that Yuri was no longer just a random guy in Victor's bed, he was back to his usual smiles and cheer, pulling Makkachin back when Yuri started to edge away from her because she sniffing at him. "You can stay here, if you want. Are you going to come practice with us? I've never met anyone from the future, just a couple of people visiting from the past. Is figure skating really different in the future?"

"Uh, kind of?" Victor had pushed the quad revolution forward, chasing higher and higher scores; there had been a couple sets of rule changes, too. But it wasn't like it was a completely different sport. Even if felt that way, sometimes, in this past year, with Victor permanently out. There was Yuuri, there was Yuri himself, there was Otabek, but nobody had quite learned how to shut up about Victor yet.

Yuri had brought a change of clothes with him, so at least he had something clean to wear while cooking breakfast to make up for the whole sudden time-traveling roommate thing. Victor's kitchen was a bit understocked, but he managed to put something together while Victor heated water for tea and then sat around playing with his dog.

"Did you bring practice clothes with you, too?" asked Victor.

"Yeah, but they need to go through the wash, first." They'd gone straight to Victor's place after the rink.

"I'll put them in for you. While they're drying, you can borrow some of mine." Victor smiled over Makkachin's head. Did he have to smile so much? Was he always like this, or was he just trying to be friendly after Yuri had insulted the lack of goods in his cabinets? Victor smiled a ton, sure, but it was often more toned down than the bright look this younger Victor kept sending his way. "I think we might even be almost the same size."

When Victor had him start trying on some of his clothes after breakfast, Yuri grimaced as soon as he'd pulled on the first outfit. It felt weird to be wearing someone else's clothes; he would have been happy to buy a few shirts, since he could more than afford it, but bank cards and time travel never mixed. And who used cash anymore? Yuri didn't bother.

Victor had been right: Yuri had never caught up to Victor in height, but Victor had been a skinny teen just like Yuri still was, and was only beginning to fill out into the slightly bulkier frame he would have in a few years. The shirt Yuri had on looked like something that might have come out of his own dresser, too, black, short sleeves, but it somehow managed to _feel_ like Victor's shirt all the same. At least it didn't smell of him, just of laundry soap and fabric.

"You can borrow anything else you need, too," Victor said, already digging out more clothes to shove at Yuri. "You only have the two sets of street clothes, right? Here, these jeans are kind of short on me, and oh, you'd look nice in this one."

"What the hell, no, get that away from me." That level of sparkle should have been reserved for skating costumes only.

Half of Victor's wardrobe seemed to consist of the same kind of dark shirts as Yuri was currently wearing, and the other half was completely orthogonal to any real sense of style. Glitter and lace edging and button-ups in bright colors with sharp-cornered collars. Yuri salvaged the good bits for his own use until he woke up back in his own time, and by the end of it Victor was huffy about Yuri's thoughts on his sense of style.

"Aren't you used to it from older me?" he asked as they headed out of his apartment to go to the rink.

"Older you's different." He dressed like a reasonable person most of the time. One who wore clothes that were way too expensive, and who cared too much about little details like how Yuri had tied his tie or what shade of red Yuri's scarf should be, but at least he looked like a normal adult.

Victor made a disappointed noise. Soon enough, though, once they had stepped out into the sunshine, he was back to smiling. Again. And then he was chattering away about the rink and what everyone there had been up to lately and wouldn't it be exciting to have Yuri there and on and on and on. Yuri squinted in the bright light, felt the echo of his headache returning, and let Victor carry on most of the conversation.

At the rink, Yakov scowled when he saw them show up. Victor smiled at him like nothing strange had happened. "It's okay if he skates here, right? He's only going to be here for a few days, and I'm really curious how one of our future rink mates skates, and—"

Yuri let Victor do the talking. Yakov would say yes; not only was it standard policy in most place to accommodate travelers when possible, he'd be curious about his future student, too, and even beside that, he was a softy at heart. It had taken Yuri a while to figure out that under Yakov's annoying nagging and shouting, he actually cared, and Victor was still far better at wheedling favors out of him with only the usual amount of fuss.

When Yakov agreed – pinching his nose, as though either of them had planned this to cause him more stress – Victor smiled again and grabbed Yuri's elbow. He called out to the other skaters gathered near the boards, and, whoa. Yuri had forgotten the disaster that was Georgi's hair towards the end of his teens, before he'd figured out a style that actually managed to look kind of cool on him. He'd definitely forgotten the woman standing next to him, an older skater who had retired right before Yuri came here.

There was another awkward round of questions – when had he come from, what was the rink like in a decade, the usual kinds of things travelers got asked – before Yakov yelled at them to go warm up instead of standing around gossiping during their ice time. Victor was already out there, and as silly as he could be at times, he had a focused look on now. He'd always liked practice better than Yuri.

Yuri couldn't help but keep looking over at him. This Victor was – well, he was _Victor_. He hadn't won a gold medal at the Olympics at seventeen for nothing. Yuri had gotten used to his skating, the quality of it, his style, until seeing him doing perfect jump after perfect jump, elegant run-throughs in practice, perfect performances at competition, had hardly made him blink. But seeing this Victor was seeing that with years of refinement missing. With a different style and a different... okay, it was weird seeing him with the long hair again, too. It made him seem younger, softer, and it reminded Yuri too much of being four again, eyes glued to the television and to the skater who didn't look like anyone else.

And it reminded him of the season before last. The final Olympics for Victor before he stepped off the competitive stage for good. The first for Yuri, hoping to make his own mark. The media wouldn't shut up about the two of them, and nobody would shut up with the comparisons. Yuri had struggled to make himself stand apart, to be something fiercer and stronger than Victor had been, but it hadn't been enough. Though he didn't like to think that Victor was right about not being able to choose his own image, it had kind of felt like that.

Yuri's hair was past his shoulders; Victor's long hair had been his trademark. They were both called pretty more than handsome, both slender teenagers who had hidden strength in their spindly limbs, who were flexible enough to do Biellmanns thanks to Lilia, who had worn the same costume at one point. They had the same coach and they worked at the same rink and Yuri was just a little younger than Victor had been at his first Olympics.

And they'd had the original himself to compare Yuri against, too. Victor had always said the same irritatingly bland statements whenever the press had tried to ask _him_ to compare them, about how they were different people and he admired Yuri's hard work and he hoped they both did well. Yuri, of course, couldn't look the poor sport or Yakov and Lilia would lecture him for ages, so he'd repeated the same things and avoided the question of whether Victor was like a mentor to him entirely.

The whole situation had been infuriating. It had been one thing for his first year in Seniors, when he was still establishing himself, when it wasn't entirely bad because it meant more eyes on him, but for his second year? When he had a whole year's worth of the results of his own work to show off? Yuri had to stop looking at the news, or social media, just so he wouldn't break his phone five times over in the months leading up to the Olympics.

And if it wasn't comparing them, the media was trying to prop him up as the next hero of Russia already, like he was Victor's successor. He didn't want his success to have anything to do with Victor; he'd earned it on his own terms. But it was that and calling him 'the new face of Russian figure skating' and wrung hands about whether he'd be able to help keep Russia's Worlds slots by himself with all the injuries going around that year.

Yuri had intended to ignore all of it. To take in the praise and bask in the attention and pay no attention to the parts that made him want to break something.

Victor himself had somehow ended up being the least worst part of that whole experience. He hadn't talked to Yuri endlessly about the Olympics that season like everyone else wanted to. When it was announced who was going, though it was obvious ahead of time who would be chosen, Victor had texted him and Yuuri saying that he hoped he'd get to stand with his two favorite Yuris on the podium. (They'd agreed that Victor had better be below both of them.) Like Yuri, he'd done his best to shoot down any rumors of a heated rivalry in the press – although Yuri had done so because he was focused on not just Victor, but on Yuuri with his stamina and Otabek with his cool programs and stupid fucking JJ. Victor had made it sound like they were friends.

It still hurt to think of how things had worked out. Even if Yuri didn't want to feel that way, even if he tried _not_ to think about it as much as possible.

At the other end of the rink, the younger Victor threw a perfect quad Salchow, then stumbled so badly on his next one that he fell flat on his face. He rolled over, laughing, wiping the bits of ice off his legs. Older Victor had fallen in practice, too, but never in competition. Occasionally two-footed his landings, under-rotated, sure. Falls had been for other people.

It was strange to see him in practice again after a year of mostly seeing him at the side of the rink. He was coaching Yuuri, sort of coaching Mila and Yuri with Yakov's help. Yakov was retiring – too old to keep up with teenagers, he claimed. Victor wouldn't stop asking Yakov if he was going to move somewhere warmer, no matter how many times he said no.

Only it felt weirdly normal to see him practicing steps and spins and jumps with everyone else again, too, because it had been normal for so many years. This was doing his head in. Stupid time traveling. Yuri should have been back at his apartment right now, curling up with Potya.

Not being able to tear his eyes off Victor all day didn't help his mood any. Not while they were on the ice, Victor moving with a different kind of grace than he'd adopted later; not when they had lunch, Victor playing with his hair and ignoring the surrounding chatter to smile and ask Yuri to show him his programs; not when they were working off the ice, focusing on strength and flexibility that would support their skating.

When Victor bugged him again about his programs, Yuri sighed and grabbed his phone from the boards. "You better not complain that I'm spoiling you about the progress of figure skating or whatever," he grumbled. He found the song and shoved the phone at Victor, after giving the ice a glance to make sure it was clear enough and that nobody else was about to start a run-through.

He still didn't have Yuuri's stupidly high stamina, but he'd improved in strength since his first season in Seniors. His spins still tended to go a bit wobbly at the end, something that Victor was always, always chiding him about. "You have to leave the audience with a good impression," Victor would say. "If you're traveling across the ice so much, and look like you're about to drop out of your position from exhaustion, what do you think that impression is going to be?" And then he'd tell Yuri to practice spins until he felt like throwing up.

This Victor went wide-eyed by the time Yuri's program was over. For a moment, Yuri didn't know how he was going to react. But then he beamed. "It was choreographed by Lilia, right?"

"Yeah." His free was done by Georgi this year, and he'd done his exhibition by himself. One program from Victor had maybe been enough. It was a beautiful program, and Yuri had made it his own, but the media didn't need more fuel for comparisons.

"Well, you still have a lot of progress to make, but you're pretty good! I'd love to compete with you."

Yuri rolled his eyes. That was Victor, critical before he was complimentary. He seemed to think critique _was_ a compliment in and of itself. "What, only pretty good?"

"Your jumps were really good – you got so high! And two quads in your short program, you must be strong. Yakov told me that was too much when I wanted to try it this year until I kept landing them in practice. I was almost surprised you put a triple on the combination instead of another quad! It's just – when you raise your arm on a jump, you're not supposed to bend it that much, right? It kind of ruins it. You should do it like Boitano did."

"Ugh!" Yuri snatched his phone back to put it out of the way. "You and the helicopter arms, you never shut up about that."

"I bet Lilia doesn't either! And what," Victor asked, laughing, "is older me your coach now?"

"Pretty much," and Victor's laughter died away. His expression went more contemplative for a long, quiet moment, and then he broke out that stupid smile of his again.

"Let me show you how to do it, then." And he went out and jumped three triples in combination, an arm raised in a perfect ballet position for each one. He made it look easy. Lilia would have approved. Victor may not have had his quad flip yet, but he'd still been the leader of the pack before that.

Yuri had hardly been able to be impressed by Victor for years, but seeing this younger version skating like that in front of him, he wished for a moment he'd gotten to compete with this version of Victor instead. Not the one struggling to surprise his audience, and then the one struggling with his comeback before wrapping up his career with a fairy-tale ending of a season.

This one, whose eyes were bright, who had never known Yuri as a little kid. Against this Victor, Yuri could never have been talked about as the potential upstart who could replace him – even if Victor had never said that himself – but as someone who was up against him as an equal from the beginning.

Not that this Victor was an improvement over the one Yuri knew. He bugged Yuri too much – like while Yuri was cooking at night, because he wanted good food, better than Victor would make, and he might as well do something to pay Victor back for using his space. It was like he'd decided that Yuri was cool and wanted to be instant best friends with him, but this was different from making friends with Otabek.

Otabek could actually shut up, for one. And he didn't keep making so many _assumptions_ about things Yuri hadn't told him about.

A couple of days in, while Yuri was finishing their dinner, Victor was saying, "I've never really thought about coaching before, but ever since you said older me helps coach you, I keep thinking that maybe it would be fun if I couldn't skate anymore. Let's see, the season before would have had the Olympics, right? Was I already coaching you by then? I guess I'd be kind of old. But it'd also be fun to be standing on the podium with you! Ha, if I got gold and you got silver, it would look nice with our different hair colors, and everyone would be so happy to have a one-two finish for Russia. Unless they're anyone else here who could take bronze, and then—"

"No," Yuri said, gritting his teeth at the stove, because he still didn't want to talk about that. "There's this – ugh, stop making that face. I'm not ruining your precious surprise and it's not like anything that happened for me has to come true here. Anyway, you'll like him. You're pretty much best friends." They were always at each other's apartments, although so was Yuri, playing video games with Yuuri or arguing with Victor about some aspect of his training.

"Well, two out of three isn't bad! I'm looking forward to it." Victor laughed, a pretty kind of laugh that he didn't really do that much nowadays. It had been annoying the first few times, before Yuri had gotten used to hearing it every day.

It was, at least, nice that even this Victor, who barely knew him, thought that he was that impressive after a couple of days of seeing him practice. Which Yuri already knew, of course. Still.

That night, on his way to go brush his teeth before wrapping himself up on Victor's couch (surprisingly comfortable), Yuri stumbled on him cuddling with Makkachin. Victor was always cuddling with Makkachin and saying the same kind of dorky things to her that Yuri said to Potya, only Victor did it with other people around. It shouldn't have made him blink.

But the hallway was dark, and Victor had pulled his hair out of its messy braid, and they were sitting on the floor together. His voice as he cooed at Makkachin was so soft, his hands running down her back so gentle, that it struck Yuri all of a sudden how much younger this Victor was. How he hadn't seen Victor meeting with anyone else – he chatted with others at the rink, but Yuri had captured most of his attention since he got here. And when they weren't skating, he was either talking with Yuri or playing with his dog. The moment felt private, too, just for the two of them, and it was weird enough to be watching that he hastily retreated back to the living room.

It was an odd line of thought. Victor probably just wanted to use the time he had with Yuri before he returned to the future, instead of reading books or whatever.

A few days in, Yuri was used to most of the younger Victor's quirks – his laugh, the way he was always playing with his hair, how he always acted even more cheerful and smiley than the older Victor. He stopped asking so many questions, too, which made him less annoying. He made requests for breakfast and dinner and enthused over the food Yuri made; he did try to push Yuri towards his own sense of fashion when he helped Yuri with his laundry, but it was the fun kind of argument, the kind that they didn't mean. At practice, he did his own thing, and watched Yuri – he could feel those blue eyes on him from across the rink.

Yuri found him surprisingly tolerable. When Victor made him watch a movie with him – some dumb French thing about magical ballet dancers – he found himself genuinely smiling while he and Victor tore it apart and Victor ranted about the bad subtitles.

"I'm glad you showed up here," Victor said when it was finished, pushing the DVD back into its case. "This was fun! I don't have a lot of skating friends I can do this kind of thing with."

"Huh?" Victor had been plenty popular, hadn't he? He and Georgi got along well, too, although as far as he knew, older Victor rarely invited only Georgi over.

"I mean, there's Chris, but he lives too far away." Victor threw him a smile, probably the thousandth one that day. "I'm glad to know I'll have a friend like you in a few years! And whoever that mysterious other friend of ours is."

"Right," said Yuri, a little puzzled. Yeah, Victor didn't hang out with a lot of other people most of the time, as far as Yuri knew, but... surely that was because they were all busy. And Yuuri was pretty good, and Yuri was awesome, so naturally he'd want to spend his limited time with them and not with losers who had never chased him down a podium.

The next day, at practice, Victor was watching him again. Yuri half wished that a little version of Mila was there to stare at him instead – ha, wouldn't that be nice, getting to lift _her_ over his head – but maybe it was still a few years too early for her to be at the rink yet. (Victor had brought up the possibility of meeting himself. Grandpa would have been happy. Yuri wasn't sure he would have wanted it to happen in his own timeline, and besides, younger him was still a little kid.)

The older skater Yuri had forgotten hadn't paid him much attention after his arrival, but this time, Georgi stopped practicing his camel spins to come watch for a few minutes, too. Was he doing something special? It wasn't like he was showing off his quads right now.

He stopped to ask them what was going on, but Georgi spoke up before he could open his mouth. "Do you have anything for your programs for next season, yet?"

"Not really." He hadn't picked out his music yet. Last season, his short program had been set to this great rock piece that Otabek had sent him. For a brief moment, he'd thought it might scandalize Lilia; of course, in reality she hadn't blinked at all and choreographed a program that, as the commentators said, 'combined strength with balletic grace', which Yuri still thought was a stupid thing to say.

"Have you ever skated to ballet music?" Georgi asked, eyes big and bright. God, this Georgi was so painfully sweet and earnest. Just as sensitive as older Georgi, without any of the maturity that reigned it in. A little. When he wasn't performing. Or in the middle of a break-up. Or in the honeymoon phase of a relationship.

"Not _Swan Lake_ ," said Victor. Yuri tried to interject – of course not, he was never going to skate to a cliché piece _ever_ if he had any choice about it – but Georgi was already making a counter-suggestion. As they started to argue back and forth, he rolled his eyes and went for his water bottle. (The hell, Georgi, no, he wasn't going to skate as Romeo. That was a terrible idea and not cool at all.) After a few moments, though, Victor turned back to him. "What kind of music do you like? You would look really nice skating to classical music, but I could also see you doing, like, metal, and getting all shouty for it."

Yuri could already see Yakov glaring at them for taking such a long break – Georgi bit his lip and went back to his spins. Victor, though, didn't pay Yakov any mind. He only ever did so when he wanted to. "Yeah, I've done that. I dunno. I want something, I don't know, grown-up this year. Something that says I'm not just a bendy little kid with nice jumps showing up to take gold."

Victor nodded, then did that thing where he put a finger to his lips. "Well, I can't choose your music for you, but maybe I could help with your image? There's only so much one can do for that, but maybe if we did something with your hair...."

Yakov yelled at them. Victor, obviously lost in thought, drifted back out toward the center ice. Yuri returned to his own drills.

He assumed that Victor would forget the whole thing. Yuri had gotten better at making him uphold his promises over the years – it helped to remind him frequently, and Yuri usually did so with lots of angry text messages – but of course this Victor would probably be even worse about them.

When they were finished eating dinner, Victor cleaned up – just like in the future, he kept his apartment in much better shape than Yuri's would ever be, though there were a few misplaced pieces of clothing laying about. Afterward, he disappeared for a few moments. When he came back, holding a little box, he pulled Yuri over to the couch. "What are you _doing_?" Yuri asked.

"Hm? Weren't we going to try stuff out with your hair?"

"You remembered?" That was a rare occasion.

"Sit down," said Victor. He dropped the box on his couch and opened it to reveal a bunch of hair ties and things, then sat next to it. "Actually, it might be easier to reach if you're on the floor."

"Sure, whatever." He sat and leaned back against the couch, and a moment later, one of Victor's legs was on either side of him, warm. It was weird for a moment, and then Yuri was distracted by the feeling of Victor running a comb down his hair.

For a minute or two, they were quiet, and it was comfortable, despite his sitting on the floor. It helped that he was back in his own clothes today, too. They stood out from the rest of the laundry; Victor may have had one silly shirt with a print of tiny poodles on it, but he didn't have any tank tops with a cat printed on the front like Yuri did.

Victor's hands were gentle and sure of themselves – it was a lot like having Lilia do his hair. He'd never let the older Victor touch it, though he'd asked a couple of times. It wasn't that he didn't trust Victor to do a good job (Yuri had seen the photos from when he'd had long hair), it was just... he didn't need to have Victor putting his hands in his hair and probably cooing about how nice it was. The offers had been for exhibitions. He could braid his own hair.

"Wow, your hair's so light and pretty," Victor said. Yuri mumbled a thanks. "Are you going to grow it out any longer?"

"I dunno." It felt long enough already, falling to his upper back. Sometimes when he was in a hurry and trying to comb it and catching on knots, he thought about cutting it short. Shorter than Victor's. But he could never remember to ask about it by the time he next saw a hairdresser to chop a few centimeters off, or he'd change his mind by then, so it hadn't happened. "Maybe I'll cut it and have a dramatic reveal." _Like you_ , he almost added, but he didn't want to derail the conversation into Victor whining about spoilers or something.

"I'm trying to imagine a short hairstyle that would work on you... ah, maybe something kind of spiky and fluffy? I think that would make you look even younger, though. But I like it like this! It's fun to play with." Yuri could feel him tugging gently, braiding down the sides of the head. "I don't get to do this for other people a lot. Lilia let me, once."

" _Lilia_ let you do her hair?"

"Once! She was really sleep-deprived from our flight and she was having trouble getting her bun right, so she let me do it for her." Yuri snorted at the image, which made Victor laugh, too. "Ha, I don't know about more adult, but I think this will look nice."

Yuri waited while he did one side, then the other, before he pulled the rest of it back in an ordinary ponytail. Victor was beaming when he held out a hand mirror, clearly pleased.

He froze when he saw the hairstyle – nothing complex, just these weird braids framing his face, half French braids that made the hair look lacy. It was the exact style that Lilia had used for his short program the season before the one that had just finished, the Olympic one.

It shouldn't have gotten to him. He didn't look back, he didn't have regrets, he didn't believe in unlucky charms or any of that shit, but nevertheless, his second reaction was to toss the mirror back on the couch and snarl, "Take it out."

"Huh?"

"I said, take it _out_." And when Victor huffed at him instead for not appreciating his braids well enough, Yuri reached up to start trying to undo them himself, yanking at the strands.

Victor caught his hands and forced them away. "Stop that, you're going to hurt yourself. I'll undo it. Geez, if you didn't like it, you could have just _said_."

Yuri growled at him, but Victor had started undoing the braids swiftly, and with a lot less pain than Yuri's attempt, so he made himself stay still. After a moment, he sighed; he shouldn't have reacted that badly to a stupid hairstyle. There was no reason to, and now he felt like a child throwing a tantrum, not an adult who was earning his own way in the world. But he didn't want to think of that season any more than he had to, didn't want to think of it around Victor, who had a gold medal from his Olympic debut shoved in a drawer somewhere.

"Bad associations?" Victor asked, his voice carefully even in a practiced way that Yuri had learned to pick out. It was odd to hear it being used on _him_.

"Yeah," he said, trying to act like it didn't bother him at all. It didn't. Really. "Short program the year before. It was... I mean, it wasn't bad, I placed and everything. Just hard."

"Stressful? Well, it was the Olympic season. I get it. Everyone cries there. I even got Yakov to tear up a little! Okay, let's try something different. Let's see... hm, do you have a cat? You seem to like them so much."

"I do."

"Tell me! That way I can impress you when you show up here."

Talking about Potya was always relaxing, and it definitely wouldn't hurt to teach Victor about cat body language so he wouldn't freak her out, like Yuri's Victor had the first time he met her. From there, the conversation flowed naturally again, and between the rhythm of their words and the hands in his hair, Yuri found himself relaxing back against Victor's legs. This felt nice, although it bothered him a little whenever Victor's fingers would brush his neck or ear; it tickled, in a way that felt _too_ nice.

Victor took forever once he got past Yuri's scalp, and he didn't understand why until Victor showed him. This style was better – three French braids, a larger one on top and two smaller ones on the side, joining into a herringbone braid in the back, where the crossed strands were straight and denser than a normal braid. It wasn't that different from his usual look, but he thought it did make him look a bit older.

Victor insisted on trying another style, and Yuri let himself be wheedled into it despite how he was starting to get tired of sitting on the floor. Makkachin came to sit by them, then poked her head into Yuri's hand. He gingerly pet her a few times, causing Victor to bubble up with laughter. "Makkachin, good girl. We'll make him into a dog person yet!"

"Never," Yuri swore, but he kept petting her until she shook her head and clicked off to the kitchen. Victor handed him the mirror again – this one hadn't taken that long – to reveal several free-hanging braids around his face, the rest of his hair simply pulled back in a low ponytail. "What's this supposed to be?"

"Don't you think it looks cool? You know, like warriors in fantasy illustrations and things like that."

"It's okay, I guess."

"Wow, you're not easy to impress, huh?" He started to take the braids out. "If you don't like braids, you'd look nice if you pulled it back into a bun, too. That always makes a person look older and more mature and elegant."

"I am not going on the ice like Lilia dressed me." Well, she helped. But only on Yuri's terms.

"Not like a ballet bun. Like this, um, hold on." He finished taking out the braids, then pulled out the hair tie, too, and coiled Yuri's hair at the base of his head. "See? Just takes a couple of good pins."

"Eh. Maybe."

"I mean, it wouldn't emphasize your neck as much as a ballet bun, either, which is too bad. You have a nice neck." And as though to prove it, he ran the fingertips of his free hand down the back of his neck.

That sure made him shiver. That had to be on purpose, right? Victor teasing him. But he didn't say anything; he let go of Yuri's hair and started to comb it with his fingers, going back to complimenting it for how pretty it was and how easy it had been to style.

It was weird to have Victor throwing so many compliments at him. Not that Victor didn't – this Victor and the older one back home – but not this many without criticisms thrown in, too. Yuri shifted in place to get some blood flowing back into his legs and stretched one stiff ankle.

"You know," said Victor, "I was wondering about something you said the other day. Do people really compare us that often? Because we're not that similar in every way."

"It bugs me, okay?"

Victor continued on as though Yuri hadn't said a word. "Like, your spins travel all the time – you do need to fix that – and, well, you've already heard about your arms." There it was. "And your style is sharper than mine. You always skate so confidently, like you're demanding that the world acknowledge you. Our jump strengths are different, too. How'd you get so good on your triple axel?"

"I had someone teach me. You'll know who when you see him, 'cause his is better than everyone else's."

"I can't wait, then. The steps you use to lead into it are cool, too."

Back to the compliments. Seriously, this was getting strange. Was Victor being overly-nice to him for some reason? It wasn't like he would be trying to get Yuri to like him more; they'd already had fun with the movie the other day, and....

Wait.

Was Victor flirting with him? The nice words, the attention, the watching him, the touching – he was still playing with Yuri's hair. There was no reason for him to shake on hand free, then smooth the strands down along Yuri's ear and neck. None. Oh. From Victor's point of view, he'd had this hot person his age show up in his house and they'd spent almost every hour together the past few days talking about skating – of course he'd be into him.

Yuri could ignore him, or tell him off. But, hell, Victor was nice-looking at any age, and this one wasn't so bad. If he was into it, Yuri could be, too.

Yuri tested this hypothesis by shaking Victor off, then turning and pulling himself onto the couch. Victor didn't blink when Yuri pushed into his space; he smiled, the same way he had been all week. Even when Yuri grabbed his shoulders, even when Yuri started to close the distance between them.

He did make this weird squeak when Yuri kissed him, though, and toppled back into the arm of the couch when Yuri pushed too much of his weight on him.

"What?" he asked when they broke apart, eyes wide with surprise.

"What do you mean, what? You've been flirting with me all week, haven't you?" Shit, had he read this wrong? Because it was going to be awkward for the next couple of days if he had.

Victor's eyes widened fractionally further, and then they went half-closed as he put on a grin, draping his arms around Yuri's shoulders and shifting his legs to make more room for him. "Was I?" he asked, coy. "I guess I am starved for cute guys who are into skating. I must be desperate if I'm going for someone who yells as much as you."

Yuri shut him up with his mouth. Victor was a much slower and softer kisser than he was, and he kept pulling on Yuri's hair when he went at it too hard, as though he hadn't touched it enough today already.

This was certainly different than anything he'd ever done with the future Victor. Not that his imagination hadn't provided, at times, although it had made him feel weird. He wasn't sure what Victor would think, if he would pass it off as a joke and tease him until Yuri was too furious to think straight, if he would push Yuri into the counter and not let go of him, if he'd get a pitying look in his eyes and try to let him down gently in the worst way possible.

This Victor was reaching under his shirt to run his hands along the muscles of Yuri's back. Was turning his head and opening his mouth against Yuri's. Was panting whenever they drew apart for a few moment and soon pulled him back in.

Yuri lost track of time, busy with their mouths, with tugging Victor's shirt off – his bare chest wasn't anything he hadn't seen before, but touching it was new. Victor's skin was smooth and he wriggled no matter where Yuri touched him. "Are you ticklish?" Yuri demanded, and Victor gave a little shrug that was probably a yes. It was fun to make him squirm, especially when Yuri chased his fingers with his mouth and made him produce all kinds of noises.

Eventually, though, Victor pushed him away, only to grab his hand. He pulled Yuri off the couch, then down his hall to his bedroom. By this time it was past dark; it wasn't quite yet the time of year for the white nights, but it had to be late if the windows were that dark. Moonlight shone through Victor's gauzy curtains, and made his hair glow when he pushed Yuri to the bed and slid his own hair tie out so it would spill over his shoulders. Show-off.

It was pretty, though. Yuri preferred it short, but he was starting to see the appeal in this look, too. There was also plenty of it to grab on to when he shrugged out of his tank top and reeled Victor back in for another kiss.

Some time later, Victor pulled him under the covers. Yuri had meant to leave and go back to the couch, but Victor was as clingy as ever, and it had always been a rare day that Yuri could wrest himself free. He didn't think he'd be into Victor hugging him from behind, sighing into his neck, but he was warm, at least, and he didn't hog the covers or snore. Yuri lay there for a while, a little surprised at how relaxing it was, until he drifted off.

The world felt different when he blinked awake the next morning. Not just because of Victor still hanging on to him, but it was – he didn't know at first, and then he did. He was going home tomorrow.

_Finally_ , part of him said. Another part wanted one day more. Victor was _really_ good with his mouth.

Huh, then the older Victor back home, with another decade of experience, must be—

"Good morning," Victor mumbled into his jaw, before turning Yuri's head for a kiss.

"I'm leaving tomorrow."

Victor pulled himself up and blinked at him, then flopped back down on his chest. Yuri could feel his eyelashes brushing against his skin, so light and gentle they were barely there. "Hmph. Already? I guess if we hurry, we can go again before we head to the rink. If you want."

Yuri gave it half a moment of thought. "Sure." It felt good to roll them over and pin him down by the wrists, though Victor wriggled his hands free a few moments later. It felt even better to have Victor crying out because of him, digging nails into his upper back, flushing and looking only at him.

They were late to the rink, but only by ten minutes. Victor chattered to Yakov about Makkachin and how she'd been so excited on her morning walk that he just couldn't bear to take her inside any sooner, and half the rink was rolling their eyes and buying it.

Yuri couldn't help but think about what Victor had been saying last night about their styles and everything being different, especially when Victor skated over to him while he was working on a spin and started to try and help. "You're not my coach yet."

"I just want to see you do them better! Aren't you going to feel stupid if you lose to someone in the future by a tiny little bit and you can't help but think, oh no, if only I'd gotten a little better of a GOE on my spins, I would've won?"

Damn him. That was an actual possibility, against some of Yuri's competition. "Fine. Give me some tips." They probably wouldn't be very helpful, but it couldn't hurt.

Victor, of course, didn't want to stop with the spins; he jumped into trying to lecture Yuri on image again, too. "I know it's frustrating when the media wants to paint you as, say, the cute boy-next-door, and that's not what you want to be, but if you fight against it too much or in the wrong way it'll be a disaster—"

"Ugh, older you's been over this a million times, leave it to him."

"—but I hope you can pull it off. I don't know what skaters are like in the future, but right now I think you'd stand out a lot. And not just for those jumps of yours! Pick some cool music and surprise the audience with how much it suits you, okay?"

"...okay?" He'd asked Otabek to send him anything good he came across already. Maybe he could go with more high-energy classical for the other program. He liked that, too. Maybe something from a ballet; ballet dancers were hardcore. He didn't have to do the usual kind of interpretation with it.

Victor, clearly pleased that Yuri was apparently listening to him, clapped his hands, before returning to his own practice.

Yuri let out a breath and made himself focus on the ice again. The ice and the movements of his body – controlled, powerful, balanced. Deep edges, turns right where he wanted them. He was Yuri Plisetsky, and he wasn't the next Victor Nikiforov any more than Yuuri was, or Otabek, or JJ; he was the ice tiger of Russia, and maybe he hadn't won five Grand Prix Finals or Worlds medals in a row yet, but he'd already stomped Victor's records several times, and he was going to keep getting even better. Strong and graceful, flexible if Lilia had her way, fuck, he would take pretty if they would stop calling him a fairy.

Why did the next season have to be so far away? Ice shows were okay, but he wanted to skate the way only competition would allow him to.

Later that night, he and Victor got takeout so they could spend their time on something more interesting than cooking. Victor didn't let him go, afterward, kept playing with his hair and fidgeting with the covers. "I hope I can be friends with this world's you, when I meet him," he finally said. "I know it won't be the same, but you have, ah, a distinct personality."

"I was a total brat as a kid," Yuri told him. "I managed to hide it for like six months when I was still worrying that Yakov would tell me I wasn't good enough and send me back to Moscow. Then I realized I was."

Victor laughed. "Thanks for the warning," he said, and then he settled down properly under the blanket. "Have a good time back home."

Even if they had wanted to stay up, Yuri's eyelids were growing heavier by the second, and he could see Victor stifling a huge yawn. Time to return. He let himself fall asleep.

He didn't dream. He woke suddenly, his body shaking, with two concerned faces hovering over him – Victor and Georgi. _Older_ Victor and Georgi, the regular ones. "Are you okay?" Georgi asked. "We were having trouble waking you up."

"Well, I'm awake, so stop shaking me," he snapped, brushing Victor's hands away. His backpack had made for a poor pillow, and his neck hurt.

Mila was still snoozing away on the couch. Yuuri wasn't in the room, but somebody was making coffee in the kitchen, so that had to be him. Yuri dragged himself into the kitchen and stole some as soon as it was ready, so he could slump at the table with it and stretch his neck out.

"I did offer you something more comfortable," Victor said, amused, when he came in after seeing Mila and Georgi out.

"Yeah, well, I took a little trip to the past, so it was a good thing I had it with me, huh?"

Victor paused, bent halfway to petting Makkachin. (She shoved her head up into his hand anyway, then licked it. Ew.) Yuuri glanced up from his own cup, his interest in the story apparently overcoming the need for caffeine. "When did you go to? I'm jealous. I've never had one yet."

"Like ten years ago. I ended up with a younger you," he said, looking at Victor, who raised an eyebrow. "He almost called Yakov on me, and then he decided that we were going to best friends for a week when I told him we were rink mates."

Yuuri exuded envy. They might all be close friends now, but it wasn't a secret that he'd idolized Victor way more than Yuri ever had.

"Wow," Victor said, laughing and standing back up. "I'm surprised you lasted that long without killing him! Or did you manage to bond over skating?"

"Half skating, half him braiding my hair. Is that why you grew it out, because you didn't have anybody else's to braid? God, you were annoying when you were young, though."

Victor laughed again, and didn't deny it. "I'm sure I was. And you let him touch your hair? I'm surprised, Yura. What, did he give you jumping advice in exchange?"

"I'll tell you about it later. I'm hungry."

Yuuri managed to wring the answers to a few questions out of him, but when Yuri started to bang around the cabinets, he took the hint and took Makkachin out for a morning run.

Cooking in Victor's kitchen was nice. Not just because he kept it clean and well-stocked, but also because whenever Yuri complained about not having something, it magically appeared the next time he went over. There was a fancy coffee machine sitting next to a slightly less fancy electric kettle; he'd bought one of those nice Japanese rice cookers with a million options after Yuuri had moved to the city, which fit right in with the mixer so smooth and shiny that Yuri was always leaving fingerprints on it.

Not that Yuri needed any of that for making breakfast. He took down one of the pans and contemplated the contents of the fridge.

Victor was still there, leaning against the counter, sipping on his own cup, watching him.

The silence bothered him. It was too expectant. "He was okay," he said as he sorted through the fridge. "Annoying, but he let me stay in his place. Kept trying to correct my everything, but he also kept bugging me to show off to him and saying how he couldn't wait for me to be at the rink and stuff. He was really happy at the thought that we were standing next to each other on the Olympic podium."

He didn't look at Victor as he said it, but he could hear him taking in air through his teeth. They didn't talk about that. There wasn't much to talk about. Victor had taken silver and cried because it was his last competition. Yuuri had taken gold and cried because of that.

Yuri had finished in tenth place. He'd come in injured even after skipping Euros, skating on painkillers, had probably pushed himself too much that season, according to Yakov. Hell, maybe it was nerves, although it hadn't felt like that beforehand. He'd tried his hardest and it hadn't been good enough and he'd cried in a back hallway where only Lilia could see him.

The press was only a little mollified when he took second at Worlds. There were Russia's three precious fucking slots, Yuri had thought at the end of his free program, so exhausted he could barely skate back to the boards. It wasn't a gold, so it wasn't good enough for some people; Victor, there to cheer people on rather than to skate himself, had hugged him in the kiss-and-cry in Yakov's place. "See, we knew you could do it," he'd said. He'd saved _I'm leaving Russia's skating future in good hands_ for the press, who wouldn't snap at him for it.

Yuri wasn't going to live up to Victor; he was going to skate past him. Victor should be remembered for being Victor, for, yeah, all the records he'd set, the way that he'd pushed the sport forward with his quads and his artistry, the influence he'd had on skating's popularity in Russia and probably abroad. Now Yuri was here, and he had the chance and the ability to push it even further.

"Well, your talent is obvious to anyone with eyes," Victor said.

"Yeah. You're not stupid when it comes to _that_." He dumped the last of the ingredients on the counter. "It could've been worse. He was really good with his tongue, too."

He looked over just in time to see Victor cough into his cup. "Oh, did you find that out?" he asked after a moment, something shifting in his stance, his eyes.

"Made me wonder how you would be – old age is supposed to give you wisdom and experience and all that crap, right?"

Victor's lip twitched up. "So they say."

That seemed as good a sign as any. Yuri stepped over, yanked Victor's cup from his hands to put it down for him, then leaned up to kiss him. Victor didn't move away, and when Yuri drew back to look at him, he looked back, calm as anything, only with his eyes a little wider.

When Yuri shoved their mouths together again, Victor's opened beneath his. He tasted like tea and jam, and his short hair wasn't quite as satisfying for Yuri to tangle his fingers in. This Victor kissed differently than the younger one; he let Yuri take the lead for a few moments, then put a hand in the small of his back and returned the enthusiasm with something slower and deeper. Yuri could feel his cheeks burning when it finally ended.

Victor traced his cheek with one finger, then pulled Yuri closer and tucked his face into his hair. Not what Yuri had expected, this long moment of quiet, before Victor sighed and asked, "What do you want, Yura? A friend you can sleep with? A lover?"

"I don't know." He hadn't thought that far ahead. Sure, Victor had his good points, but the idea of _dating_ him instead of just dragging him back to his bedroom was – well, it would be weird, although – Yuri's stomach did a flip at the thought. Victor would probably want to do all that mushy stuff like hold hands and cuddle for hours and buy him dinner – okay, that part would be fine. Maybe the cuddling, in moderation Ugh, this was taking too long. "I don't know," he said again. "Can't we just figure it out as we go along? We're not getting _married_ , we don't have to decide that we're this or that right _now_. Right?" He couldn't hold in the slightest measure of hesitation on that last word and winced at the way it softened. It wasn't like he had a ton of experience with things like this.

Victor looked a touch hesitant as well. "I suppose, if you want to," he said, slowly, and then he burst into one of his dorky smiles. "Says the one who didn't believe he was friends with Yuuri because he hadn't officially declared that you were."

"Shut up." That had been an embarrassing argument. That still hadn't been what he said, but if they went down that path, Victor would tease forever. "I just figured out, like, _yesterday_ that I kind of like you, okay. Can we get back to making out?"

"As much as I'd enjoy that – and as cute as those red ears of yours are – I think Yuuri was expecting pancakes when he came back."

Right. He'd been making breakfast. Yuri made the biggest sigh he could, then wormed his way out of Victor's grip to start mixing.

"So how did it happen?" asked Victor. He picked up his cup again, and now he was standing much closer than before. "Did he make the first move, or were you enchanted with my youthful good looks—"

"I did. I thought he was flirting with me. I'm still not sure if he was just the kind of idiot who didn't realize he was flirting or if you're a weirdo who is _really_ into braiding hair and talking skating."

Victor laughed at that. "Trust me, if he'd known he was flirting, you would know. I didn't know anything about subtlety when I was a teenager."

"Like you know anything about it now?"

Victor laughed, again. Yuri liked hearing it, liked that he was making Victor laugh like that – not at him, but natural, at ease. Here with him when he could have been anywhere else in the world, with anyone else who wasn't the younger rink mate who had been his biggest rival at Nationals the last couple of years of his career. It was Yuri (and, okay, yes, Yuuri, too, in his own, different way) who had kept his attention where it belonged.

Yuri was sliding the first pancake onto a plate when Yuuri returned. "I already tried to get all the good parts of the story out of him," Victor said, a smile back on his face. "Sorry if I got him in a bad mood for you." Naturally, Yuri rolled his eyes and started telling a rapt Yuuri about the first day on the ice with the younger Victor.

He kept the _really_ good parts to himself for now, for Victor's ears later.


End file.
